Why CSR and Attribution Matter for Loyalty: A Mediated Model of Customer Identification

ABSTRACT The current study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on customer loyalty (CL), based on the premise that CSR is fundamentally aimed at serving society better. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to consumers in Zhejiang, China. From 459 distributed questionnaires, a total of 320 valid responses were obtained. Participants were selected based on their recent experience in purchasing branded products and demonstrated literacy. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 for reliability, validity, correlation, and regression analyses, while AMOS 22.0 was employed to perform confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Current work considered the depth of CSR and the breadth of CSR and applied attribution and social identity theory to examine how various CSR practices affect CL from the consumers' perspective. The research outcomes disclose that both the depth and breadth of CSR exert a positive impact on CL. Customer identification (CI) was disclosed as a significant mediator between CSR and the CL relationship. This result suggests that customers who identify with the company's CSR efforts are more loyal than others. Moreover, CSR attribution moderates the depth of the CSR and CI relationship positively. Also, CSR attribution moderates the mediating effect of CI on the relationship between the depth of CSR and CL. These outcomes contribute to the understanding of CSR by elucidating the complex dynamics between CSR and customer behavior and advance prior work by distinguishing the depth of CSR from its breadth and integrating CI and attribution into a unified moderated mediation model of CL.